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Comment by delecti | Hacker News Reader

Cynically? Because people understand shoplifting more, and the media can blame it on the poor/homeless and use it as fuel to increase police budgets. Wage theft is also in the same order of magnitude (the infographic on Wikipedia says >$19 billion in 2012), and similarly doesn't get the same kind of coverage. Capital and the police scratch each other's backs.

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Capital and the police scratch each other's backs.

Why wouldn’t capital be all over the police to crack down on cargo theft?

If it's anything like the situation with the LA train thefts in the past couple years, it's because the security to guard things enroute would cost more than just eating the losses.

Well it’s one thing to guard and try to prevent thefts. It’s quite another to investigate them and arrest the perpetrators. If there’s some gang stealing trains or truckloads of goods then police could presumably find them and arrest them.

I have met several people who stole things for fun and talked openly about it. Not to make money or to fulfill some fundamental need, but just for the thrill and to get something they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay for.

Ok? Do you think they're regularly doing this and account for a meaningful portion of shoplifting or do you think they're basically telling you their story about how one time they broke the law?

A friend of mine has shoplifted all kinds of random-ass shit. I'm talking like, oh, an entire dinette set, on one occasion; a canoe, and (unfortunately) only one paddle on another. And, oh, yeah, that $300 Dutch oven in their kitchen cabinet? Yeah, that's stolen.

So, I suppose, you may never know, huh? Because it could be.

How did he/she get it out the door - just run out with it? A dinette set isn’t easily concealed :)

I don’t know if they were bragging about a fake story but I remember an ex Walmart store employee saying they scanned the bar code for a smaller tv and bought a bigger more expensive tv. This was before 9/11 though iirc just to give you a reference of time and technology so don’t try it anymore.

Long ago I worked at Home Depot and we were explicitly told to let people walk if they were stealing. It wouldn’t be concealed, just walked out the door.

"No Chase" policy.

https://youtu.be/h_BT7vNhjCo

Off-topic: how much time has this friend spent in your home alone?

No these people had a years long habit of it, usually starting as kids or teenagers. Not every day but regularly still.

Can you prove the other way around?

Aren't diapers known as one of the most frequently shoplifted items? I guess they could be some kind of challenge for kleptomaniacs, but it seems more likely they're expensive essential items.

According to this [0] page, the most commonly shoplifted items are "apparel followed by cosmetics, alcohol and electronics," so if true, then it's not primarily a matter of essential items. It goes on to say that "incidents peak during December," which I think would tend to imply that people were taking advantage of product placement during Christmas season as opposed to stocking up on food and staples for the winter. (Of course it's possible people in distress are stealing luxury goods to sell at a discount to then acquire necessities.)

Purely speculating but I think that to some extent advertising has been a victim of its own success in convincing people that their self-worth hinges upon their ability to consume goods and services. If you can afford it, buy. If you can't afford to buy, borrow. If you can't borrow, steal. Just don't be poor and get caught. (Being rich and getting caught usually isn't a problem.)

[0] https://blog.gitnux.com/shoplifting-statistics/

… diapers, laundry detergent, etc. are stolen because they’re as good as currency. Anyone who lives in a poor area can tell you there is someone reselling these for a bit cheaper.

Baby formula as well. That's the reason it's typically locked up in stores, drug dealers will exchange formula for drugs.

https://www.phillyburbs.com/story/opinion/columns/2017/08/08...

Some even end up going big and steal from banks/investors but that is a bigger no-no. ( FTX, Theranos, WireCard, Frank, WeWork, etc )

Committing fraud to attempt to hide your failings is different than intentionally stealing things. Madoff is a better example of intentionally stealing.

And all pale in comparison next to tax evasion (the IRS estimates this at one trillion dollars per year for the US, and even more conservative estimates are in the hundreds of billions).

>the media can blame it on the poor/homeless and use it as fuel to increase police budgets

Why would "the media" care about police budgets?

Keeping people scared keeps them watching. Most media would lead you to believe crime is way up (it blipped up slightly, but has declined considerably in the last 30 years).

Also, there's very little in the way of mainstream media that isn't owned by wealthy people. The media is one major arm through which capital acts.

It drives engagement which means greater impact.

You could argue the same about wage theft, arguably even more so considering the viewers likely has a personal stake. Why don't we see this happening with wage theft?

Because wage theft is committed by the ownership class. Ted Turner, Jeff Bezos, and Rupert Murdoch don't want people upset about wage theft because they benefit from it.

>Ted Turner, Jeff Bezos

Clearly they missed the memo

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awashingtonpost.com+wa...

https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/18/news/economy/wage-theft-wor...

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